


ceylon skies

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Humanstuck, Multi, it's one of those liminal spaces, sort of a coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:49:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there's a little café down the street that's the axis for your tripartite universe</p>
            </blockquote>





	ceylon skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



There’s a little café down the street that doesn’t put sugar in its sugarbowls. The owner, once upon a time, back at the grand opening, swapped it out for brightly colored sugar stars, _konpeito_ , and never looked back.

Sollux always carefully maneuvers the spoon to only get the pink and blue ones, before dumping them into his coffee en masse. Whenever one of you brings it up, he insists that “it just happened that way”, before smirking and taking a sugar-laden sip. Equius once spent the better part of an hour calculating the exact sugar-to-sugar ratio of one _konpeito_ to sugar cubes, and now adds precisely _five_ , heedless of color, to his drink du jour.

As for you, you dump a full tablespoon into your tea and watch them swirl down, sweet little stars in a Ceylon sky.

 

There’s a little café down the street where you had your first date, the three of you around a tricorner table _(isosceles, perfectly, Equius said)_ that you’d turned away from the wall so you could all sit equidistant _(equi_ close _, you’d said)_ from each other, one corner pressed flush to the wall, the others pointing out into the café.

_(The owner had smiled about it, and refilled your bowl of sugar stars.)_

The conversation had been almost awkward, almost stilted. It wasn’t like the three of you met in a busy street, and the world stopped spinning, and you’d somehow found your way to the same café for a date. It was like notes between classes, quiet conversations, the three of you coming to the gradual realization that things _worked_ , all at different paces, and you wondered if you weren’t the better for it.

_(Slow-melt sugar steeps the sweetest teas.)_

And you weren’t _perfect_ , it was important to get that, that things would never be _perfect_ , not the way movie endings and fairy tales were, because happily ever after was all well and good, but whenever you rode into the sunset on a white horse, _someone_ had to remember to muck out the stable the next morning.

 

There’s a little café down the street where you’d gone after you had your first fight.

Three-sided fights were almost impossible, and neutrality was improbable, which left staying out of it altogether, playing the mediator, or _leaving._ Sometimes you wondered if you were lucky that they preferred to pick fights with each other–

 _(So what, I’m not good enough for you now? So what, I’ll NEVER be good enough for you? For her? You know what,_ fuck _you, I’ve known her longer than you, and–)_

–and then you reminded yourself that you argued with them often enough.

 _(Stop treating me like I’m made of glass! It was_ once _, it’s not going to happen again!)_

You liked to think of yourself as the happy medium, which made you chuckle whenever you brought out your tarot deck. The third point that turned an endless line into a stable triangle, the balance between enthalpy and entropy—things _happened_ , because of emotion, because of arguments, but even those could take over everything without care, so you came down to the café with your deck clutched tight and did readings for anyone who asked, almost scared to do one for yourself–

 

(There’s a little café down the street where they came to find you after every fight, where the owner had your orders memorized and declared them on the house–

_(in all fairness, your readings had the line out the door, with the baristas coming up to take their orders while the waiting patrons wove around the tables)_

–and refilled your bowl of sugar stars, with a smaller spoon and significantly more pinks and blues than usual. Sollux didn’t have to carefully angle his scoop _(he picked up an orange and a white and didn’t even care)_ , Equius could pick his precise amount out _(he didn’t bother this time)_.)

 

–so you did your last reading for the night, a reading for the three of you, threefold and centered, in a little café down the street where they know you by name, and they’ve watched your story spread and unfold.

You’re all terrible at apologies, but you _know,_ you can _tell_ , it’s in the way they don’t bicker, the way they came in with their hands bumping against each other, the way Equius pulled out his chair for him and the way Sollux thanked him softly, without any smart comments. It’s in the way Sollux brushes his fingertips over the edges of your cards, then glances up at you, belatedly remembering to ask for permission, and the way Equius stares at them, brow furrowed, as if he’s trying to decipher their meaning from the brief introduction you’d given him a week ago.

 _(you’re all terrible at apologies, too stubborn, too proud, too set in your ways to bow, but maybe you can_ bend _)_

 

There’s a little café down the street where they proposed, to you and to each other, trying to speak over one another, trying to talk faster and get the words out first. You’d burst into giggles, insisting that it would be impossible to wear _four_ rings on one finger, and had to snicker at the arrested look on Sollux’s face as he contemplated it _(he’s always loved things to be even, you’re astounded at how well he handles being part of a three)_.

Equius had replied that it was still possible for the three of you to design the rings together, and it was only at your _third_ thought that you considered how many fights you might have over it.

Your first thought was yes, and

                                                 your second thought was tipping over the nearly-empty bowl of sugar stars and scattering them across the table.

“This is what I want,” you tell them, gesturing at the colors, sweet little sugar stars in a ebony wood sky. “The rings should look like this.”

They exchange looks—Sollux a grin, Equius a thoughtful frown—then nod at you.

“Yeah,” says Sollux, “I think we can make that work.” _(you can_ tell _he’s already picking out metals and densities and structures and shapes)_

“And if we can’t,” murmurs Equius, picking up a sugar star and turning it over _(and you know he’s got half a dozen potential gemstones selected in his mind)_ , “we’ll work something better out.”

 

There’s a little café down the street that doesn’t put sugar in its sugarbowls, where sweet stars swirl through liquid sky, where the universe stops to take a breath. It’s the center of your universe, the place where tarot cards fall just right, and every story unfolds.

There’s a little café down the street, and for the three of you, it is _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I go overboard with the "deeper meanings", the wood of the table is a special type of ebony.
> 
> Written for Polyswap 2016, based on this prompt:
> 
> "I'm interested in people's takes on a functioning relationship with this trio. While angst is just fine, I really prefer them to be on more or less even terms (even if somewhat antagonistic, if you decide to go black between any of them!). Maybe Aradia gets these two nerds in line, maybe they all have sloppy makeouts in one big, gross pile. Anything is really fine, though I'd prefer no noncon in general, please."


End file.
